Public toilets almost ready for use

A new pay-as-you-go public toilet is now sitting at a harbourfront streetcorner, a year late but still not quite ready for use

The facility, dropped off last Thursday at the corner of Queens Quay West and Rees Street, will be a quarter a flush and self-cleaning. It is the first of 20 slated for installation this summer.

Kyp Perikleous, the city’s right-of-way manager, said the Queens Quay toilet should be running in a matter of weeks, regulatory standards permitting.

“We’re hoping that everything will be fully operating by the end of the month,” Mr. Perikleous said. Attention to below-grade infrastructure, including sewage and hydro, may also cause slight delays.

Councillor Howard Moscoe (Eglinton-Lawrence), a proponent for more public facilities in Toronto, said the washrooms — which will self-sterilize after each use–are long overdue.

“I think the public deserves to have public facilities, the basic fundamental need,” Mr. Moscoe said. “I wish the TTC would realize that they are a necessity.”

Mr. Moscoe called Toronto’s current public washrooms unsanitary, and suggested the city take notes from cities such as Paris or Berlin that supply clean public washrooms.

“[Public washrooms] pay for themselves,” Mr. Moscoe said. “It’s not nice to have to pay to go to the washroom, but if you want a clean alternative to slipping into a McDonald’s, people are willing to pay.”

The public washrooms are the last phase of Toronto’s $1-billion Street Furniture Program, funded by Montreal advertising giant Astral. The toilets, which cost $350,000 per unit, were originally supposed to cost the public $1 per use. According to city officials, Astral dropped the price once they realized public toilets in Europe charge much less.